<p>'So I was the 6787th person in Beijing wanting to act in the film and TV industry. There were 6786 young and beautiful, or ugly and old people before me trying to get a role. I felt the competition, but compared with 1.6 billion people in China, 6786 was only the population of my village. I felt an urge to conquer this new village.' Life as a film extra in Beijing might be dispiriting, but Fenfang – the spirited heroine of Xiaolu Guo's new novel – won't be defeated. She has travelled 1800 miles to seek her fortune in the city, and has no desire to return to the never-ending sweet potato fields back home. Fenfang is determined to live a modern life: she works as a cleaner in the Young Pioneer's movie theatre, falls in love with unsuitable men, keeps her kitchen cupboard stocked with UFO instant noodles. As Fenfang might say, Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, isn't it about time I got my lucky break?</p>

<p>When a young Chinese woman, newly arrived in London, moves in with her English boyfriend, she decides it's time to write a Chinese-English dictionary for lovers. Xiaolu's first novel in English is an utterly original journey of self-discovery.</p><p>***</p><p>“By turns hilarious and poignant. Xiaolu Guo has given us a fresh and bittersweet addition to the literature of cultural displacement.” – The Oregonian</p><p>“Funny and charming…more than a love story; its psychology is politically acute, and things noted lightly in it linger in the mind.” – The Guardian (London)</p><p>“Xiaolu Guo has written an inventive, often humorous and poignant story of a woman’s journey over cultural and emotional borders.” – Gail Tsukiyama, Ms. Magazine</p><p>“Xiaolu Guo’s novel, her first in English, is smartly absorbing. Grade: A” – Entertainment Weekly</p><p>“A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers cleverly courts our assumptions about the chasm between Chinese and Western cultures, only to upend them. It is an utterly captivating, and disorientating, journey both through language and through love.” – The Independent (London)</p><p>“As absorbing as a peek into a diary.” – The San Diego Union-Tribune</p><p>“It is impossible not to be charmed by Xiaolu Guo’s matter-of-factness… It is equally hard not to be impressed by Guo’s vivacious talent.” – The Sunday Times (London)</p><p>“A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is original, humorous, and wise. Within imperfect language one can find many perfect truths of the human condition. The misunderstandings are really the understandings of the differences of the heart between men and women.” – Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club</p><p>“Xiaolu Guo is a fabulous writer, fresh, witty, and intelligent. She handles language in an astonishing way. I don’t think I have enjoyed a book as much in the last twelve months.” – Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat</p>

<p>From Publishers Weekly</p><p>Xaviera Hollander has been writing a Penthouse column for 30 years. She chronicled her life as a "high-class New York madam" in 1972's The Happy Hooker: My Own Story, which now returns to print. Frankly discussing lesbianism, bondage, voyeurism and run-ins with lawyers and the FBI, Hollander's book was an international bestseller. In her new epilogue, Hollander rather questionably attests that although her stories may not be as shocking or taboo now as they were in 1972, "the business of sex [has] a new relevance" since September 11. Regan Books will also publish Hollander's new memoir, Child No More, in June (a review will run in an upcoming issue).</p><p>From Library Journal</p><p>Dutch madam Hollander scored big with this 1972 autobiography, which became a best seller 15 million copies worldwide. Although the book ended up in the hands of respectable readers, it's little more than smut, as Hollander recounts how she left Holland for a job as a secretary in New York, got bored, and became a prostitute and brothel manager (doesn't everybody?). Three decades later, when you can find raunchier stuff on prime-time TV, this is kind of kitschy. This 30th-anniversary edition contains a new epilog.</p><p>***</p><p>An astute historian of New York prostitution might have heard a small bell ringing in their head upon reading the name of the woman accused of arranging prostitutes for Eliot’s Emperors Club VIP: Tanya Hollander. You see, New York’s most notorious prostitute (and madam) ever, the Happy Hooker, was named Xaveria Hollander. Was it now a family business? We called the old girl in Amsterdam to check.</p><p>“No, she’s not my daughter,” Hollander tells us from what she refers to as her “bed and brothel” on Amsterdam’s Gold Coast. “But it’s a wickedly chosen nom de plume.” (We prefer to think of it as a "nom de poon.") Was the Happy Hooker herself shocked by the news of Spitzer’s dalliances? Not really, save for the prices being bandied about. “Is that what they get paid these days?” she asks, referring to the $5,000 allegedly earned by Ashley Alexandra Dupré. “I was in the $100 bracket.”</p><p>Let's talk quality of clientele. Is Spitzer really that big of a deal? Who did Hollander meet in the boudoir? “I had my dealings with the White House,” she says. “But it was more discreet. Newsweek offered to pay me a lot of money if I’d admitted that Sinatra was my client. But I never talked. My affairs we’re never sleazy. I might have mentioned something about a crooner from New Jersey, though…”</p><p>Hollander has written eighteen books since her seminal tome in the seventies, in addition to writing the "Call Me Madam" column in Penthouse from 1973 to 2005. Coming soon to a bookstore near you: The Happy Hooker’s Guide to Sex-69 Orgasmic Ways to Pleasure a Woman, from New York’s very own Skyhorse Publishing. We're the hooker capital of the world! -Duff McDonald</p>

<p>In the world of fiction reviewing, extraordinary is an over-used word. Yet there really is no other way to describe Chinese author Xinran's second book, Sky Burial. It is extraordinary in so many ways-the subject matter, the setting, the central character, but mostly its authenticity and the author's continuing search for the woman whose life is told here.</p><p>Sky Burial is the true story of a Chinese woman's 30-year search through Tibet for news of her lost, presumed dead, husband. Xinran is working as a radio journalist on a women's programme when a listener calls in to tell her about Shuwen. Xinran travels hundreds of miles across China to interview her and, over two days, Shuwen opens her heart and reveals her tragic, scarcely imaginable life story. Xinran returns to her life and spends the subsequent 10 years trying to find Shuwen again, researching her story and writing this book-a homage to an ordinary woman's extraordinary life-long search for the truth.</p><p>The story is a simple one: Shuwen meets her intelligent, idealistic husband-to-be while they are both training to be doctors. After less than 100 days of marriage, Kejun travels to Tibet as a Chinese army doctor and before long, Shuwen is notified that he has died in an "incident". Shuwen decides to join the army herself, travel to Tibet and find out if he really is dead, and if so, how and why he died.</p><p>And then, as if travelling to a closed country like Tibet as a young woman in the 1950s is not difficult enough, Shuwen quickly becomes separated from her unit and, close to death herself, is taken in by a family of Tibetan nomads. Her transformation from Chinese doctor to nomadic Buddhist is a long, painful and at many turns, deeply distressing one.</p><p>Sky Burial is a slight book-little more than an extended short story-and yet the ground it covers is immense, not just because of the fascinating glimpse it offers into a land and a people still largely unknown in the West. Despite its tragic themes of loss and survival in one of the world's harshest landscapes, it is an uplifting tale of unwavering loyalty and immeasurable inner strength. -Carey Green</p>

<p>Nobel prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata is noted for his combination of a traditional Japanese aesthetic with modernist, often surreal trends. In these three tales, superbly translated by Edward Seidensticker, erotic fantasy is underlaid with longing and memories of past loves.</p><p>In the title story, the protagonist visits a brothel where elderly men spend a chaste but lecherous night with a drugged, unconscious virgin. As he admires the girl’s beauty, he recalls his past womanizing, and reflects on the relentless course of old age.</p><p>In One Arm, a young girl removes her right arm and gives it to the narrator to take home for the night; a surreal seduction follows as he tries to allay its fears, caresses it, and even replaces his own right arm with it.</p><p>The protagonist of Of Birds and Beasts prefers the company of his pet birds and dogs to people, yet for him all living beings are beautiful objects which, though they give him pleasure, he treats with casual cruelty.</p><p>Beautiful yet chilling, richly poetic yet subtly disturbing, these stories make compelling reading and reaffirm Kawabata’s status as a world-class writer.</p>

<p>At last! An astonishing and original new novel by the author of Life of Pi.</p><p>A famous author receives a mysterious letter from a man who is a struggling writer but also turns out to be a taxidermist, an eccentric and fascinating character who does not kill animals but preserves them as they lived, with skill and dedication – among them a howler monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice…</p>

<p>"This is a wonderful novel. Original, suspenseful, funny, and profoundly moving. It's about family, community, the human bond with animals, and – oh yeah – spaceships. I am in awe of Yannick Murphy's achievement and I plan to recommend it to everyone I know." – Geraldine Brooks</p><p>The daily rhythm of a veterinarian's family in rural New England is shaken when a hunting accident leaves their eldest son in a coma. With the lives of his loved ones unhinged, the veterinarian struggles to maintain stability while searching for the man responsible. But in the midst of their great trial an unexpected visitor arrives, requesting a favor that will have profound consequences – testing a loving father's patience, humor, and resolve and forcing husband and wife to come to terms with what 'family' truly means.</p><p>The Call is a gift from one of the most talented and extraordinary voices in contemporary fiction – a unique and heartfelt portrait of a family, poignant and rich in humor and imagination.</p>

<p>Sinister forces draw together a cast of desperate characters in this eerie and absorbing novel from Yoko Ogawa.</p> <p>An aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. Years later, the writer’s stepson reflects upon his stepmother and the strange stories she used to tell him. Meanwhile, a surgeon’s lover vows to kill him if he does not leave his wife. Before she can follow-through on her crime of passion, though, the surgeon will cross paths with another remarkable woman, a cabaret singer whose heart beats delicately outside of her body. But when the surgeon promises to repair her condition, he sparks the jealousy of another man who would like to preserve the heart in a custom tailored bag. Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders—their fates converge in a darkly beautiful web that they are each powerless to escape.</p> <p>Macabre, fiendishly clever, and with a touch of the supernatural, Yoko Ogawa’s <emphasis>Revenge</emphasis> creates a haunting tapestry of death—and the afterlife of the living.</p>